Jennifer O’Connell: RTÉ's influencers are at the murky nexus of commercial and public interests

There is a maxim in crisis communications that it’s what you do in the first 60 minutes which determines your chance of survival. The rule of the so-called golden hour, so say the PR gurus, invoking the language of surgeons in the battlefield, says you must quickly assess the damage and deliver the bad news fast. Only then can you stem the blood loss.

Two weeks into the RTÉ crisis over secret payments, the organisation is still faffing about looking for the first aid kit. With every day it is spinning further out of control in a catastrophic doom loop of damning revelations. For an organisation in the business of communications, the fact that it appears just as stunned as the public by each fresh disclosure does not bode well for its recovery.

The line of fire expanded this week to include RTÉ presenters with lucrative side hustles as influencers. Or “brand ambassadors”, as some of them prefer to be known.

On one level, in the scheme of what has been exposed, the outrage about their activities feels rather contrived. Compared to Ryan Tubridy’s €345,000 in hidden payments, or the barter account, does it really matter if Doireann Garrihy eats her #sponsored porridge in an RTÉ studio? Or if Lottie Ryan is photographed in the Montrose car park with a borrowed car, or how many commercial gigs her 2fm co-presenter Carl Mullan has? Does it even matter if Marty Morrissey, a staff member, accepted a loan of a car from Renault and held on to it for five years until the day after the secret payments to Tubridy emerged?

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No one at RTÉ seems to have questioned whether presenters whizzing around the Montrose car park in shiny borrowed cars or getting paid to promote wine on their social media was, in fact, really something to be encouraged

Morrissey says he is not a brand ambassador for Renault, pointing out that he never endorsed the car, and that it was “an ad hoc arrangement”. But it is a sign of how blurred the lines between the corporate, entertainment and editorial sides of the house have become that it took five years and a crisis of this magnitude before it occurred to him that this was an “error of judgment.”

It is hardly a secret that RTÉ's home-grown influencers have been living their best lives at the murky nexus of commercial and public interests. Unlike those barter accounts, this is not an issue that has been hiding in plain sight. It has not, in fact, been hiding anywhere; rather, it has been brandishing its #kindlygifted wares on social media, shilling for likes with the hashtag “sp”, or “spon” or sometimes just a no-nonsense “ad”. The same day that the revelations about payments to Ryan Tubridy emerged, Kathryn Thomas, an outside contractor, posted a jaunty update to her social media about her summer plans involving a sponsored car.

Perhaps the most astonishing part is that they are doing nothing wrong. Nothing in their agreement with RTÉ says they can’t earn a few bob – or even many bobs – flogging corner shop wine, breakfast cereal or cars, once they ask permission.

[ Horse Racing Ireland defends paying Doireann Garrihy €27,000 to promote the sport ]

Conflict of interest

Needless to say, it is not a great look to have people who are partly paid out of the public purse – whose profile in many cases has been built on platforms funded by licence fee payers – enthusiastically promoting things that are deleterious to public health or the climate. Only it very much does need to be said, because the thought doesn’t seem to have crossed the minds of anyone at RTÉ.

The avoidance of any perception of conflict of interest is why the BBC requires all staff, plus freelance presenters, reporters, producers and researchers, to formally declare outside interests that may affect their work. Its guidance for “on-air talent” is crystal clear: “under no circumstances should anyone working for the BBC or on behalf of the BBC receive personal benefits from suppliers or accept goods or services as inducements.”

Staff, contractors and freelancers, the guidance goes on, “must not appear on-air wearing clothing or using products or services which they have agreed/been contracted to promote, advertise or endorse or in which they have a specific financial interest”. In a line which seems to foreshadow those mock Late Late Shows held in Renault showrooms, it adds that “individuals should not replicate their on-air role to endorse a product, service or organisation”.

No one at RTÉ seems to have questioned whether presenters whizzing around the Montrose car park in shiny borrowed cars or getting paid to promote wine on their social media was, in fact, really something to be encouraged. They – or their agent – might make the case that they worked hard to build a profile and they’re entitled to capitalise on it. But would anybody be giving them anything for free if they didn’t have access to RTÉ's significant platforms and vast audiences?

RTÉ appears to have long ago forgotten that its primary responsibility is not to advertisers or the mortifyingly-named “talent”, but to the public. At some point, it seems to have given up trying to hold the line between commercial and public interests. And that is dangerous.

[ Entire culture of stars at RTÉ has done desperate damage to the broadcaster ]

One suggestion slipped by almost unnoticed in the torrent of revelations this week. Minister for Finance Michael McGrath said that he plans to add RTÉ to the list of commercial State sector companies subject to the formal oversight of the National Treasury Management Agency’s NewEra unit. Chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh separately suggested that RTÉ should again be brought in under the control of the Comptroller & Auditor General. There was no discussion about what any of this would mean for the organisation’s independence.

As Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe pointed out, when we get through this, we’ll still need an RTÉ. With every new disclosure about a borrowed car, every ticket for Phil Collins, every pair of designer flip-flops, every #spon post, RTÉ's chance of emerging intact is slipping further away.